Conquering Death
by demoness-sweet
Summary: What Adam wanted, Adam got, because he was Adam. But there was one thing he could not do. And that was conquer Death. SLASH Adam/Death


If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them down in defence of GO. I only regret that I have but one life to give to my love of GO slash.   
  
*sparkles die down*   
  
erm...meep? *drops fic and runs*   
  
  
  
Title: Conquering Death  
Author: demoness_sweet  
Warnings: pre-slash between vaguely male shaped entities. Yeah, and character death.   
Disclaimer: Blah, blah, no belong, can't kill authors, can't keep GNeil in basement, broke as an ansaphone.   
  
  
  
What Adam wanted, Adam got, because he was Adam.   
  
But there was one thing he could not do. And that was conquer Death.   
  
*  
  
When his mother died, Adam nearly destroyed the planet in the second Apocalypse. Brian had put his arm around Pepper, and said in a trembling voice that they had chosen through the years to stay with him. It was time for him to choose. The tears in his eyes when he looked at Pepper told Adam everything. He was always the second choice. Even in that first fight Pepper had leapt at Adam first, and she had held on to his shoe with a tenacity that was spoke volumes next to the half-hearted rent in Brian's sweater. Adam knew Brian still had that sweater. And so he had let the sun come back up.   
  
*  
  
The next day he had left for Japan. He sought Death and the people who defied it. He had come back in three years, golden as Apollo, deadly as Aries, mouth pressed in a thin line. Adam knew about green tea and cold baths and the kitsune demons who were both deadly and so very lovely, but he could not call Death.   
  
Brian had looked at his face, and without a word led him into London, where sin and lights and drink flashed. Adam remembered a kohl-lined face, eyes too bright, lips too red. He rolled out of bed the next morning to find lightening streaking the sky. The girl never saw him leave, but she would remember heat and fire and icy cold whenever she bathed, abdomen dull as a coal. She would never have children.   
  
*  
  
The Wailing Wall was silent. Adam walked softly, no echoes rose from his footsteps. Three springs went by, the date trees and the lemon trees as fragrant as when Christ rose. Adam touched his side and went to buy a souvenir, thirty silver coins in his pocket.   
  
The slender boy who had looked at that golden god longingly, dark eyes aflame was found the next morning. It was a sin, and he had been justly punished. They found his clothing nearby, pants ripped and crimson with blood.   
  
Adam gave the little golden crucifix to Brian and Pepper's daughter. Auburn curls bounced as she thanked him, the metal glinting like a star. He had a chicken breast before he left, speaking quietly of redemption and resurrection. He did not speak of chaining Death. Pepper knew.   
  
*  
  
Her braids had no changed in seventy-eight years, and she spoke of deserts and eagles. Adam spent three summers with her, watching the sun come over the shadows of mountains. When he brought her a cactus flower she had smiled and said nothing. When he left she had remembered back to the telling of her birth, and climbed slowly to the top of the mesa. She flew like the eagles that were her name.  
  
Wensleydale had been the one at the airport, face as calm and unreadable as the moon. Adam had just nodded and given his single bag to his friend. He had found the stone, granite-strong. Just like his father. Adam pulled out a cigarette and lit it. Then he'd left. The wind blew softly.   
  
*  
  
Adam was in China, where golden girls in Bebe shirts danced on the steps of a Great Wall. Three times, red and golden leaves danced brighter than any flag. He learned about magic herbs that grew on mountains and white snakes that stole men's souls with their beauty. He took a paper lantern home and lit it on the beach, the English tide carrying it to his mother.   
  
The sole survivor of the shipwreck spoke of a woman of fire rising from the sea, his wife's auburn streaked black hair whipping in the wind as she screamed, how her body had burned and sunk.   
  
*  
  
Adam sat in a café, watching the people pass for three Parisian winters. The hot café du lait steamed in the cold air. She walked past him, curls bouncing on her rags. Adam called her back, her eyes puzzled and frightened. He was amazed at what a cup of chocolat chaud could do, slender fingers drawing mysterious shapes in the air. Life in the face of death, she told him, and left like a shadow.   
  
Chemistry dictates that hot water freezes faster than cold, and the night was very, very cold. Adam slept on the plane, and the stars shone clear.   
  
He returned to the warmth of a fire from his childhood, smiling at the chestnuts popping. He even managed to give Brian a good one to the head before he was tackled by two red heads and had to scream for mercy. The next day it was beautiful, and Adam was gone. A woman's intuition, said Pepper when Brian had finished ranting. He's on a quest to find. And that was all.   
  
*  
  
The grasses raked his thighs, already the shade of golden bronze. The dark man beside him grinned, legs long as the horizon pounding the land. In a broken jumble beautiful with the fluid sounds of tribal languages he pointed out the lope of a lion. And Adam understood. The antelope never had a chance. Neither did the dark man, the taint of a disease slowly claiming his blood, three years hence.   
  
Adam was home. Standing at the cottage door he knocked and Pepper opened the door. With a start he realized her hair was now tinged with gray. But she gave him a cup of warm brown tea and he knew that she understood.   
  
*  
  
The patients loved him. Three years ago he had appeared, quiet and golden and Adam. They spoke of how he talked little and watched much, and the love with which he treated young and old. When anyone died, he was there to hold their hand, and the ninety-two year old child with deep blue eyes said that he must be an angel. The next day they listened with bated breath as the news came in.   
  
Adam didn't think of anything except red-gold curls and the laughing cry of "Uncle" and the '94 Toyota barreling down with the force of a bullet, the driver young and rich and preppy and very drunk.   
  
*  
  
And when he looked up to dark eyes above slashing cheekbones, mouth too red but perfect, sunset streaked hair under a dark cowl he realized that he never needed to call Death. Death had always been at his side. And when legs long as the sky brought slender fingers to trace his cheek, Adam found that he never needed to conquer Death. And that Pepper knew all along.   
  
  
  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hi...will you forgive me? 


End file.
